(March 2018). The 2018 season at Project Wild Coshocton brings some exciting new changes. We are modifying our sampling protocol to enable us to conduct occupancy modeling, assessing which factors influence a bobcat’s ability to occupy specific habitat patches. Consequently, we have established a 49-cell grid (each cell in the grid being the size of an average male bobcat’s territory) anchored at the south-eastern corner of Coshocton County, and extending further into Holmes County than we have previously surveyed. This study design means we will be adding some new camera trapping sites, but also eliminating some previous sites.
We set up our first sets of cameras on February 17th, and have now begun collecting images from the field. Some of our pictures have been quite interesting, including photos of mink, woodcock, and even an albino raccoon! We have also collected some stunning images of our focal species, the bobcat. Here is a sampling of our early 2018 photo captures:
Bobcats:
Red Fox:
Mink:
White-tailed Deer
Albino Raccoon:
Woodcock:
